D&D 5E Is Paladine Bahamut? Is Takhisis Tiamat? Fizban's Treasury Might Reveal The Answer!

According to WotC's James Wyatt, Fizban's Treasury of Dragons introduces a new cosmology for dragon gods, where the same beings, including Fizban, echo across various D&D campaign settings with alternate versions of themselves (presumably like Paladine/Bahamut, or Takhisis/Tiamat). Also... the various version can merge into one single form.

Takhisis is the five-headed dragon god of evil from the Dragonlance setting. Paladine is the platinum dragon god of good (and also Fizban's alter-ego).

Additionally, the book will contain psychic gem dragons, with stats for all four age categories of the five varieties (traditionally there are Amethyst, Crystal, Emerald, Sapphire, and Topaz), plus Dragonborn characters based on metallic, chromatic, and gem dragons.

D&D 5E - Check out Fizban's Alternate Cover!

WotC's James Wyatt talked to Polygon about Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, which also revealed the alternate cover, which you can only get from hobby stores. https://www.enworld.org/threads/fizbans-treasury-the-dragon-book-now-has-a-description-and-a-feat.681399/

www.enworld.org

D&D 5E - Fizban's Treasury: The Dragon Book Now Has A Description... And A Feat

Courtesy of Amazon, we now have a description for Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, the October D&D hardcover. The book introduces gem dragons, dragon-themed player options, and plenty of draconic lore! This joins September's The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, and November's Strixhaven: Curriculum of...

www.enworld.org

 

[dave2008]

How on earth is that vastly more restrictive model preferable?

The mistake your making in understanding is thinking it is vastly more restrictive. Advocates of this approach may just find it liberating. People are not homogenous. My tendency is to fine separate distinct cosmologies restrictive. That doesn't make it so, it just makes it so from my perspective. Humans are funny things.

 

[JEB]

So, Joe Manganiello is a big Dragonlance fan and is especially fond of Takhisis (who he personally believes is the same being as Tiamat). From what I've gathered, his character Arkhan started out in Manganiello's home game (which I wouldn't be surprised if it was set in Krynn) before going on a quest throughout various worlds in service of his goddess Tiamat. He acquired the Hand of Vecna from the world of Exandria before heading to Avernus, where he appeared in the adventure Descent into Avernus as the leader of Tiamat's forces. This Vecna had been born in Exandria, had a long history there (where he was opposed by the Raven Queen, who is her on can of worms regarding how beings can be gods or not depending on setting seeing as she's in the Shadowfell and not an Astral Plane), and had only recently become a god before Arkhan seized the Hand; that Arkhan was already aware the Hand was something he could seize implies that he had foreknowledge of Vecna. Considering that the cosmological changes from 2E to 3E were explained as the results of actions Vecna took to become a lesser power, leading (among many other things) to the Forgotten Realms separating from the Great Wheel cosmology to instead have Toril as a kind of hub linking at least three Astral Planes associated with different planes and gods, it's not impossible for a planar traveler like Arkhan to have heard of this Vecna guy already and searched for a counterpart of Vecna in the multiverse that was relatively easy to get to for the sake of acquiring his hand.

The idea of multiple versions of Vecna and his Hand as part of different settings, rather than the same Vecna and Hand moving through those different settings, feels so weird to me. But maybe Die Vecna Die made him into a multiversal entity...

I'm also reminded of this moment from Adventure Time:

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The mistake your making in understanding is thinking it is vastly more restrictive. Advocates of this approach may just find it liberating. People are not homogenous. My tendency is to fine separate distinct cosmologies restrictive. That doesn't make it so, it just makes it so from my perspective. Humans are funny things.

It’s literally a reduction in plausible options.

not only that, but every story you could tell in this new model could have been told before, when the Great Wheel hadn’t eaten all other cosmologies and there were multiple material planes. I’ve described how already. You could even have had The Great Wheel as a setting that includes many worlds, from Oerth to Toril to Mystara to Exandria, without changing the cosmology of worlds that were their own before, or making the official canon that all worlds exist on the same material Plane.

I also just don’t get how y’all can possibly not understand why this matters. Like, it can’t just be that because y’all like this new model you can’t be bothered to think about why someone might dislike it, but that’s what it feels like having this discussion.

Eberron’s progenitor dragons, before 5e, created a universe. Not part of a universe, not a world, but a whole and entire cosmology. It existed separate and alongside other universes in the D&D multiverse. Now they created a bubble and went, “hey let’s have our own elves and dwarves and whatnot, but separate from the real deal on all those other worlds.”

Or, even worse, everything in Eberron comes from some First World that fractured into the “multiverse”.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, you're asking for my opinion, so I'll explain mine. To be clear, I don't think this is objectively better, because it actually isn't for every table and the game style they prefer.

The reason I prefer there to be an umbrella cosmology that connects all worlds (even if individual worlds have their own smaller, unique cosmologies) is that it makes the Multiverse seem more natural. It hints that there is a commonality to all worlds, that they all share an origin. It feels like how all life evolved from one single-celled organism. It makes my Multiverse feel more real, the gods seem more powerful and prescient, if there are commonalities and shared origins across worlds. It makes the Multiverse feel bigger, and the PCs feel smaller, compared the workings of the Multiverse. A PC prays to Bahamut, but that same god is listening to billions of prayers across the Planescape (or the Timescape, or the Multiverse). A god is unfathomable to a PCs tiny mind.

That said, I also like when there are exceptions like Eberron; I like how that world explicitly states that somehow, for some reason, it managed to cuelf off from the greater Multiverse and form its own cosmology around itself. It adds to the mystery when there are exceptions to the norm.

This is again, just my opinion. There are plenty of reasons not to like any of the above, but this is how I feel.

Thanks for the reply! I may not agree with much of the post, but it’s informative.,

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Well, considering that the 2E Tales of the Dragonlance boxed set listed Bah'mut as an alternate name of Paladine, and Tii'Mut of Tiamat, I think it's pretty crystal what the concept was. Trying to forcibly separate them is ridiculous, and I was never aware of such a thing.

Tales of the "Lance" (not Tales of the Dragonlance - there's no such work) is notorious for its sloppy attempt at continuity and has several entries in it that contradict countless other sources. It claims that Istarians call Paladine "Bah'mut", and Takhisis "Ti'Muht", yet when we actually see Istar in the Twins trilogy (published way before Tales of the Lance) or in the Kingpriest Trilogy (published after Tales of the Lance) we can quite clearly see that no one in Istar uses those names. Curiously these names are never repeated in any other product.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Krynn has not been separate since 2e. There are multiple Planescape products that mention Krynn or feature npcs that come from it. Heck some Krynn people showed up in Baldur's gates inside a planer device (Along with some Dark Sun characters)

No one is claiming Krynn is in some sort of reality bubble that no other world can touch. That's distinctly different from deciding that Krynn's deities are in fact aspects of other deities and that the cosmology everyone in the setting believes in (including the gods) is objectively false.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Keith Baker explicitly confirmed that Eberron was always a part of the wider D&D multiverse, even when it was introduced back in 3e.

This came up when the Eberron setting book came out for 5e, so he personally confirmed it was always part of the larger setting

I think you might want to check out Keith's blog to see what he actually thinks about that. He plays Eberron as essentially isolated. "Mordenkainen" is just an alias for Mordain the Fleshweaver and not a wizard from another planet.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I can imagine that, but it seems an unnecessary complication. And would imagine that most tables assumed they were the same, just as we did.

The Platinum Dragon, champion of Good, father of the Metallic Dragons, and the 5-headed mother of Evil chromatic dragons... now quick, did I just describe Paladine and Takhisis, or Bahamut and Tiamat?

This is rather tedious, but it seems that people don't really get the idea that on Krynn Paladine is not a "dragon god". He's the leader of the Pantheon of Good who has the avatar of a dragon amongst many other avatars. It is not his preferred form, he doesn't seem to favour dragons over his other divine subjects (elves are actually his favored creation). The only time he takes the form is when he very pointedly rejects one of his followers. When he makes the ultimate sacrifice and gives up his divinity (rendered meaningless if he merely a tiny aspect of another deity, of course), he takes the form of an elf, not a dragon.

Takhisis likewise has no real attachment to chromatic dragons over her other worshippers. Who are her champions throughout Krynn's history? Ariakas (human), Kitiara (human), Ariakan (human), Mina (human).

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Not really.

Well, yes, actually. You have read some Dragonlance, right?

 

[MonsterEnvy]

No one is claiming Krynn is in some sort of reality bubble that no other world can touch. That's distinctly different from deciding that Krynn's deities are in fact aspects of other deities and that the cosmology everyone in the setting believes in (including the gods) is objectively false.

It's less false and more it's own thing in a bubble. Eberron is stated as being the same more or less.